NEW DELHI, Dec. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Natwar Singh, India's former foreign minister and now Minister without Portfolio, announced Tuesday that he will resign and leave the cabinet but insisted on innocence.

    Singh said he will hand in the resignation when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh returns from Russia on Wednesday.

    But he kept saying that he was innocent of the charges that he had taken illegal benefit from Iraq's oil-for-food program.

    "I reiterate I am completely innocent and that no charges have either been framed or brought against me," he said in a short statement to the press here.

    He said he decided to resign because he does not "wish to be the excuse for the opposition to stall the functioning of parliament."

    The opposition parties have built up the pressure on the ruling coalition, led by the Congress Party, asking Singh to resign since the Indian Parliament started the winter session.

    Singh was forced to resign as Minister of External Affairs in early November after the UN-appointed Volcker Committee's report named the Congress Party and him as a "non-contractual beneficiary" of the Iraqi oil scam. He was shifted to Minister without Portfolio then.

    Last week, Aniel Matherani, India's former ambassador to Croatia who used to work with Singh in the Congress Party, told a magazine that Singh had borrowed the name of the Congress Party to get oil voucher from the former Iraqi government. The remark has further heated the controversy.

    Sunday night, Singh was expelled from the Congress Party steering committee, a key decision-making body.

    The Indian government has sent a three-person investigation team to Iraq and Jordan to collect evidences. Investigators also questioned Matherani Monday but refused to release the result. Enditem